Not all that glitters is gold: living conditions and protests of small pampean farmers in Argentina “granary of the world” (1900-1930)

Abstract

This article analyses the living and working conditions of small and medium farmers in the pampean region during the agro-export stage, a period in which Argentina became one of the main exporters of wheat and corn on a global scale. These producers, who were prominent protagonists in the expansion of the cultivated area, were severely limited in their access to land ownership and bank credit. They also suffered from the impositions of large landowners, railroad companies and the firms that controlled the commercialization of grains. To confront this situation, they sought to make their problems visible, took various protest measures, and organized themselves in the Federación Agraria Argentina (Argentine Agrarian Federation). As a result of these conflicts, which lasted throughout the first decades of the twentieth century, they achieved momentary reductions in the lease sizes as well as the approval of a limited number of laws that had an impact on their situation. However, during these years they were unable to alter the latifundista pattern of land tenure, a problem that is still in force.